Oakwood House (now Sabourn Court)
In 1825 this land was owned by George Goodman who sold it to Abraham Rhodes
Abraham and his brothers had turned their father’s wool dyeing business into a successful manufacturing and trading Company
He probably built the house before he died in 1838 as he mentions in his Will the ‘Estate at Roundhay which I now occupy… ....in case any of my sons in law shall purchase my said Estate at Roundhay that his Cotrustees or Cotrustee .... shall obtain a valuation of the household goods and furniture in and about my dwelling house there from some competent person or persons ...’
By the terms of Abraham’s Will each of his three sons-in-law in turn had the option to purchase his Roundhay property for the sum of £6,000. William Cadman, a wholesale tobacconist who had married Abraham’s daughter Amelia, had the first option and bought it (along with Abraham’s Estate at Wold Newton)
Cadman family papers suggest that William Cadman found himself in his element as the squire of a country estate; so much so that he abandoned his business and social life in Leeds without a backward glance devoting his time to hunting, shooting and breeding racehorses on a small scale. By 1845 the Cadmans had left Roundhay
However Amelia’s youngest sister Martha had married William
Nicholson who would inherit Roundhay Park and Mansion in 1863
For about 20 years the house was occupied by the notable Reverend James Armitage Rhodes who called it ‘Wood End’. Rhodes eventually moved to a house he had inherited near Pontefract
In 1865 the Cadmans sold ‘Wood End’ to Henry Hudson, senior partner in a firm of woollen manufacturers who lived at ‘The Acacias’, now called ‘Oakwood Hall’ on Oakwood Grange Lane
Henry Hudson abandoned the name ‘Wood End’ and referred to his grand new home as Oakwood House. When he died in 1891 his heirs put much of the grounds up for sale as the ‘Oakwood Building Estate’
It was around that time the local area became known as Oakwood
Notes
Download
Articles
Oak Leaves ODHS
Part Thirteen- Autumn 2013
Oakwood House and the Origins of Oakwood, North Leeds PDF 0.3 Mb
by Neville Hurworth
The Reverend James Armitage Rhodes
A Remarkable Man PDF 0.5 Mb
by Neville Hurworth
Cadmans at Roundhay St John, Leeds
PDF 0.7 Mb
by Celia E Moss
The Hudson family at Oakwood PDF 0.2 Mb
by Peter Oldfield
Related
The early days of Oakwood Parade from about 1893 to 1906 PDF 0.8 Mb
by Neville Hurworth
Links
Contact